A couple of years ago we suffered what the police described as "a highly complex fraud".
It involved the perpetrators posing very convincingly as an official council collection company demanding payment of overdue parking penalties in relation to which court judgments had allegedly been obtained and substantial interest accrued over a number of years. They related to a period MikeyM™ resided and drove in the area in question, though this was a major metropolis so may have been coincidence and the reason they chose that area in question.
Demands were issued by email purporting to come from a legitimate and registered government debt collection agency threatening same day bailiff action if the sum in question were not settled. A search on both email addresses used by the perpetrators and the website address they referenced supported their narrative and claims. As a further precaution, we checked the telephone number they quoted, which was the advertised number for the government registered collection agency they were posing as. So we rang this and had confirmed orally that the debt was indeed due and regrettably was unappealabale at this late stage.
Being law abiding by nature - see "The Relationship between Legal Compliance & Stressbusting™" we duly paid the sum of over £1,000.00 claimed by debit card over the telephone on the openly advertised agency number to stand down the threatened bailiff action.
However, within less than 24 hours, a further demand was received by email, whereupon alarm bells started ringing and immediate online police and Action Fraud reports were made by us.
The Police confirmed it was indeed a fraud and that we should contact our bank immediately, which we did; but the bank statement reference bore no useful or traceable reference.
They explained to us that the fraudsters had found a way to intercept both our emails and telephone calls to the legitimate agency in question, and that there was little hope of bringing the culprits to justice as they would in all likelihood be based offshore working through a number of comminication masts, so be untraceable.
We share the valuable lessons learned on combatting fraud in the future from our speaking to the Police and other authorities directly below on the precept that people can hopefully learn from our mistakes - see "Break Time Quickie: StressBust™ by learning from the mistakes of others as well as your own" :-
● bailiff action can only be taken against you if legitimate letters of adequate notice have been received by you to the property in question - do not listen to anyone who says otherwise
● don't rely on your bank to bail you out if you give details freely over the phone. Our bank (from which we have subsequently moved) placed a block on any further payments to the account in question at our request, but then refused to take our calls, let alone give a refund and take the matter up themselves
● similarly, appreciate that while the Police do a great job, the sheer volume of online fraud means resource is stretched, meaning we have to take responsibility for our own online safety before risk materialises
● bear in mind that in the UK, for example, only 1 in 700 frauds results in a conviction and that there is no public compensation scheme available to reimburse victims
● know your Financial Ombudsman rights (a matter in relation to which we intend to do a separate dedicated post); after exhausting the Bank's complaints policy, we managed to obtain a refund from the Bank, but only after engagement of the Ombudsman on the basis the Bank (which was a major retail bank) failed to pursue available lines of investigation before refusing our claim; and this refund took over a year to secure. The Bank even failed to comply with a Police request for it to make contact to assist it with its enquiries!
● so rather than rely on your Bank's advertising as to any "hard line" they purport to take on combating fraud, make it your business to request a copy of, and understand, their specific customer policy on fraud, to be better informed as to how you have to deal with fraud matters to be able to access or rely on bank support
● set reminders to regularly update security, run relevant scans on all your electronic devices and keep email addresses as well as passwords private and up to date - see "Keep a Tech Trail as opposed to Paper Trail to Stressbust™" and "Embrace Technology to Stressbust™" for further detail
● check you have no apps running on your devices that may cause a security risk - see our post entitled "Some 'Apps' are about as useful as the 'g' in the word 'lasagne'"
● "Engage “your Inner Sherlock” to Stressbust™ successfully" - in other words, double then triple check that you are dealing with who you think you are dealing with and "Never assume your 1st search engine result will give you the information you are looking for!".
●, if in any doubt whatsoever, make a report to the authorities and take their advice before sharing any personal details or making a payment; and always reporting suspicious activity to your phone company and online at Action Fraud, which provides an excellent facility to update your report with relevant developments
● keep a calm head at what can be an extremely anxious time when you may naturally feel overwhelmed, embarrassed or under personal attack, as you will need your wits about you.
We found the whole experience very upsetting, if not traumatic, as well as immensely invasive; not unlike a home burglary, as our personal information had been accessed without our knowledge, someone had clearly been observing our online activities and we had been specifically targeted as a result.
Looking back, this is hardly surprising that we felt violated in this way, as we live in an age where our non physical possessions, such as our online identities and financial details, are as important and probably more valuable to us than our physical possessions like TVs and laptops.
We are far more vigilant in our online dealings now and have updated our online security, at cost, considerably. But we were fortunate; the result could have been, and for some has been, far worse; and we count our lucky blessings for that.
For detail of how the above risks can be mitigated in a business context, please see our posts entitled "Make Insurance relevant to StressBust™ optimally" and "Register & safeguard Data to maximise its value".
If you would like to share your own experiences in relation to the subject matter of this post, then please as always comment or reach out to us via our "Contact" page.
For further information in this regard, please consult our "Legal Notices" page.
Big Secure Love
MikeyM™&LouLoU™ 😊😍😎🧡💛💕 xxxx